Racism in France

French racism has a similar structural basis to that found in Cuba:
both are based on French republican
ideals, where ethnic identity is severely deprecated, even taboo, and
citizenship primes everything. Cubans admire the patriotism of the French.
Here we track the discourse on racism in France in the hopes of
stimulating contacts on all sides.

The Living Eye and the Living Lie 4/17/2015 Panoramas: by
Alan West-Durán -
"Below is my analysis of what I consider are some of the philosophical and
ideological underpinnings of Cuban color-blind racism, motivated by the
Zurbano case." With many references to the history of ideas in France.

Paris mayor demands black feminist festival that 'prohibits' white people be
banned 5/28/2017 Guardian: "The prefect of police, Michel Delpuech, said in
a statement that police had not been advised about the event by Sunday evening.
But, Delpuech added, the police “would ensure the rigorous compliance of the
laws, values, and principles of the republic”. French anti-racist and
antisemitism organisations strongly condemned the festival. SOS Racisme
described the event as “a mistake, even an abomination, because it wallows in
ethnic separation, whereas anti-racism is a movement which seeks to go beyond
race”."

How Should the French Left Respond to the "Post-Charlie" National Unity? The
Furor Over “Fuck France” 4/26/2015 Counterpunch: "The launching of such a
debate created a real hysteria: we see a multiplication of openly racist
speeches, stating that one cannot be French and Arabic, French and Muslim,
French and Black, and that we had to choose. Therefore, in such a context, many
young people from working-class neighborhoods reacted. They didn’t especially do
so using the usual forms of political expression, writing texts, etc. But they
responded by writing songs, they reacted in doing “slam”, in writing graffiti on
walls, in which, in order to react to this racist conception of France under
Sarkozy, they said: “Fuck France”. It’s in this context, that a rapper and
myself decided not to leave these young people alone, because of the impending
repression against them, because they were introduced as savages, described as
dangerous people, and so we decided to write a book that would explain how they
came to say “Fuck France” in the first place, and which France they were
questioning: the France of the ruling class, the France of the Rich, the racist
France… "

‘A Distinctly French Universalism’: Translating Laïcité after Charlie 1/26/2015 Jadaliyya: "It
was impossible to avoid the discussion, despite my repeated protests. In Lyon,
as in the rest of France, there was nothing else to talk about—especially when I
found myself seated across from a colleague who teaches at an international
lycée, the crucible of Republican education. He was visibly emotional as he
said: “I told my students now one had to choose: either you’re Muslim or you’re
French, it is simply no longer possible, one has to declare which identity is
more important.”"

Paris Announces Plan to Promote Secular Values 1/22/2015 NYT: "French
schools already have a secular code of conduct, but about 1,000 teachers and
staff members would be trained on questions of “laïcité,” France’s secular
identity, codified under a century-old law on the separation of church and
state. She promised that a day devoted to secular laws would be celebrated once
a year in every school."

The Move to Muzzle Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala - The Bête Noire of the French
Establishment 1/2/2014 CounterPunch: "In the absence of any serious
socio-economic left, France has sunk into a sort of “Identity Politics”, which
both praises multiculturalism and reacts vehemently against “communitarianism”,
that is, the assertion of any unwelcome ethnic particularisms. But some ethnic
particularisms are less welcome than others. The Muslim veil was first banned in
schools, and demands to ban it in adult society grow. The naqib and burka, while
rare, have been legally banned. Disputes erupt over Halal foods in cafeterias,
prayers in the street, while cartoons regularly lampoon Islam. Whatever one may
think of this, the fight against communitarianism can be seen by some as
directed against one particular community. Meanwhile, French leaders have been
leading the cry for wars in Muslim countries from Libya to Syria, while
insisting on devotion to Israel."

'Miss Black France' pageant raises eyebrows 4/28/2012 France 24: "Historian
Pascal Blanchard, a specialist in immigration at France’s National Centre for
Scientific Research, agrees with Lozès, saying he was “shocked” by an initiative
he views as “stupid” and “dangerous”. “I know that in the US, there are ethnic
beauty contests. The fact that they’re tolerated doesn’t change my mind,” he
said. “Anytime that anyone, no matter where in the world, talks to me about a
contest reserved for a specific racial category, I hit the roof!”

France's Muslims hit back at Nicolas Sarkozy's policy on halal meat 3/10/2012 Guardian: "The
phoney war over halal meat erupted in February when Marine Le Pen, leader of the
far-right Front National, claimed consumers were eating halal unknowingly.
Sarkozy, trailing the Socialist frontrunner François Hollande, accused her of
whipping up an artificial controversy. Shortly afterwards, with Le Pen snapping
at his heels in the opinion polls, Sarkozy performed a volte-face. In spite of
surveys showing that voters were less concerned about halal meat than they were
about the weather and football, he announced it was "the issue that most
preoccupies the French"."

Paris
ban on Muslim street prayers comes into effect 9/16/2011 BBC: "A ban on
saying prayers in the street, a practice by French Muslims unable to find space
in mosques, has come into effect in the capital, Paris. Interior Minister Claude
Gueant has offered believers the use of a disused fire brigade barracks instead.
The phenomenon of street prayers, which see Muslims spreading mats on footpaths,
became a political issue after far right protests."

Full-face veils outlawed as France spells out controversial niqab ban 3/3/2011 Guardian: "Face
veils will be outlawed virtually anywhere outside women's own homes, except when
they are worshipping in a religious place or travelling as a passenger in a
private car, although traffic police may stop them if they think they do not
have a clear "field of vision" while driving. Women wearing niqab will be fined
€150 (about £130) and be given a citizenship class to remind them of the
republican values of secular France and gender equality. Any third party found
to have coerced a woman into wearing the face covering, for example a husband or
family member, risks a €30,000 fine and a year in prison."

French Minorities Push For Equality Post-Obama 1/14/2009 NPR: "With a
constitution enshrining the notion of egalitarianism, France has always been
considered more enlightened than America on matters of race. But Barack Obama's
victory in the U.S. presidential election has underscored France's failure to
achieve a colorblind society. Now, French minorities are pressing politicians to
promote more diversity."

Racism Unfiltered in France 5/6/2007 Time: "France rejects affirmative
action as incompatible with its republican ideals of color-blind equality for
all citizens. Nice in theory, but that's not working in practice: discrimination
continues, inequality is rife, and notions of color-blindness don't square with
the rising chorus of racially loaded commentary. Color-blindness may also
function to keep France blind to racial discrimination and inequality, but the
rising tide of anger in the projects and racist chatter in the mainstream
suggests that the French may soon have no choice but to openly confront what
color-blindness prefers not to see."

In
officially colorblind France, blacks have a dream – and now a lobby 1/12/2007 CSM: "CRAN,
in defining itself as a black organization, has run into deep-rooted hostility.
Its premise, that black citizens have shared aims and problems by virtue of the
color of their skin, may seem obvious to outsiders. But many conservatives and
academics here have complained that the group undermines the French model of
assimilation by emphasizing racial differences."

Identity: France shows its true colors 6/5/2006 NYT: "With the exception of
a few courageous souls, what still marks so many members of the French
intellectual class is their overall commitment to the ideology of Républicanisme
and its ideal of assimilation. While Paul Gilroy's "There Ain't no Black in the
Union Jack" had a palpable effect on debates about what Englishness means,
France has yet to produce an intellectual of comparable influence. Only by
coming to terms with their own cultural imperialism will French intellectuals
contribute to the challenges of better incorporating the members of minority
groups into the French polity. Only then will they live up to the powerful
tradition of the engaged intellectual."

France’s
history wars 2/1/2006 Le Monde Diplomatique: "Nora blamed this on a
recently published attack on Napoleon, another nail in the coffin of French
republicanism. In December 2005 the historian Claude Ribbe published Napoleon’s
Crime, which challenges the accepted view of Napoleon as military genius and
founder of modern France. In this book Napoleon is presented as an anti-semite
and racist, responsible for the reintroduction of slavery after its abolition by
the Revolutionary Convention in 1794. Ribbe describes him as “the first racist
dictator of all time” and accuses him of building a Napoleonic Reich that could
only prosper through the slave trade."

French blacks skeptical of race neutrality 9/21/2005 NYT: "But French
insistence on the equality of man leaves them in a bind, their black critics
say, perpetuating the fiction of a society without minorities. The census in
France does not list people by race. Hence, while blacks are thought to number
about 1.5 million, of a total population of 59 million, no one really knows the
exact number, which is estimated to be far higher."

Chirac backs hijab ban 12/17/2003 Al Jazeera: "The French president has
backed a proposed new law which would ban the Islamic headscarf and other
religious insignia from the classroom. Jacques Chirac said on Wednesday that a
law is necesary to safeguard the nation's secular identity. He said: "The
Islamic veil... the kippa and a cross that is of manifestly excessive dimensions
- these have no place in the precincts of state schools. State schools will
remain secular. For that a law is necessary."

Citizens All? Citizens Some! The Making of the Citizen 4/18/2002 University
of Binghamton: by Immanuel Wallerstein - "The way to define citizenship narrowly
in practice, while retaining the principle in theory, is to create two
categories of citizens. The effort started with Abbé Siéyès, just six days after
the fall of the Bastille. In a report he read to the Constitutional Committee of
the National Assembly on July 20-21, 1789, Siéyès proposed a distinction between
passive and active rights, between passive and active citizens. Natural and
civil rights, he said, are rights "for whose maintenance and development society
is formed." These are passive rights. There also exist political rights, "those
by which society is formed." These are active rights. And from this distinction,
Siéyès drew the following conclusion: All inhabitants of a country should enjoy
in it the rights of passive citizens; all have the right to the protection of
their person, of their property, of their liberty, etc. But all do not have the
right to play an active role in the formation of public authorities; all are not
active citizens. Women (at least at the present time), children, foreigners, and
those others who contribute nothing to sustaining the public establishment
should not be allowed to influence public life actively. Everyone is entitled to
enjoy the advantages of society, but only those who contribute to the public
establishment are true stockholders (actionnaires) of the great social
enterprise. They alone are truly active citizens, true members of the
association."

The Nyansapo Festival: A Festival ‘Prohibited to White People’? 5/29/2017 Wessex
Scene: "The Mwasi Collective responded strongly to criticism, organising a
solidarity fund and Twitter campaign in support of the festival using the
hashtag #JeSoutiensMwasi (I support Mwasi). The La Generale Cultural Centre
where the event is being held also added their support, commenting that the
event had been the ‘target of a disinformation campaign and of ‘fake news’
orchestrated by the foulest far right’."

Paris mayor demands black feminist festival that 'prohibits' white people be
banned 5/28/2017 Guardian: "The prefect of police, Michel Delpuech, said in
a statement that police had not been advised about the event by Sunday evening.
But, Delpuech added, the police “would ensure the rigorous compliance of the
laws, values, and principles of the republic”. French anti-racist and
antisemitism organisations strongly condemned the festival. SOS Racisme
described the event as “a mistake, even an abomination, because it wallows in
ethnic separation, whereas anti-racism is a movement which seeks to go beyond
race”."

Afro-feminism in France: The Struggle for Self-Emancipation 7/14/2015 AWID: "As
part of the “Undoing the Empire” (Défaire l’empire) teach-in organized by the
Paris Center for Political and Sociological Research and the Audre Lorde
Research Group on June 29, 2015 in Paris, AWID met with Annette Davis, Sharone
Omankoy and Fania Noël, all three members of Collectif Afroféministe MWASI
(MWASI Afrofeminist Collective), to learn more about the French collective's
activism in a context characterized by racism and misogyny and other forms of
discrimination."

'Quenelle' performed in middle of French Parliament 5/1/2015 Jewish
World: "Anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonné posts picture of two young men
performing inverted Nazi salute during tour of National Assembly. 'Bravo, thank
you for your support! You are everywhere,' he writes."

145 Writers Sign Letter Protesting PEN Award to Charlie Hebdo 4/30/2015 Arts
Beat: "Junot Díaz, Lorrie Moore, Joyce Carol Oates, Eric Bogosian and Michael
Cunningham are among the 145 writers listed as signatories on a letter
protesting PEN American Center’s decision to award its “freedom of expression
courage” award to the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, because the award
seems to endorse drawings of the prophet Muhammad and other images that “must be
seen as being intended to cause further humiliation and suffering” among
France’s embattled Muslims."

UN panel denounces ‘trivialization’ of racism in France 4/28/2015 Press
TV: "Meanwhile, Huang Yong’an, a former ambassador of the People's Republic of
China and now a CERD expert, said that tourists from his country were often
targeted in France, and urged Paris to take “necessary and effective measures to
curb the trend of xenophobia and to ensure security and other fundamental rights
of foreign people in France.”"

How Should the French Left Respond to the "Post-Charlie" National Unity? The
Furor Over “Fuck France” 4/26/2015 Counterpunch: "The launching of such a
debate created a real hysteria: we see a multiplication of openly racist
speeches, stating that one cannot be French and Arabic, French and Muslim,
French and Black, and that we had to choose. Therefore, in such a context, many
young people from working-class neighborhoods reacted. They didn’t especially do
so using the usual forms of political expression, writing texts, etc. But they
responded by writing songs, they reacted in doing “slam”, in writing graffiti on
walls, in which, in order to react to this racist conception of France under
Sarkozy, they said: “Fuck France”. It’s in this context, that a rapper and
myself decided not to leave these young people alone, because of the impending
repression against them, because they were introduced as savages, described as
dangerous people, and so we decided to write a book that would explain how they
came to say “Fuck France” in the first place, and which France they were
questioning: the France of the ruling class, the France of the Rich, the racist
France… "

Islamophobia soars in France 4/21/2015 Muslim Village: "Anti-Muslim attacks
have risen six-fold in the first three months of the year compared with the same
period in 2014, hitting 222 reported violent attacks, according to French
interior ministry figures. “It is the first time we have recorded grenades being
thrown or guns fired,” Abdallah Zekri, president of the National Observatory
against Islamophobia said, stressing the unprecedented rise in Islamophobic
attakcs. Racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia prevail in the country as more
non-French people have been threatened by potential violent attacks."

France to invest $107m in fighting anti-Semitism, racism 4/17/2015 Haaretz: "“Racism,
anti-Semitism, hatred of Muslims, of foreigners and homophobia are growing in an
insufferable manner in our country,” Valls told reporters in Creteil, just
outside Paris, after presenting his plan. Creteil was chosen because of an
attack on a young couple in their home there five months ago, Radio France
Internationale reported. The attackers raped the woman and said that they
believed the victims had money because they were Jewish."

France launches major anti-racism and hate speech campaign 4/17/2015 Guardian: "The
government will spend €100m (£72m) on a three-year plan, including the setting
up of a new unit to monitor and fight “hatred online”. “Passivity on the
internet is over,” Hollande said. Teacher training will be reinforced,
headteachers will be encouraged to report incidents and pupils will be taken to
visit memorial sites. There will also be tougher penalties for crimes deemed to
have been fuelled by racism and antisemitism. Hate speech, already a criminal
offence, will be moved to France’s general penal code. It will no longer be part
of a separate specialist criminal code dating back to the 19th century that
deals with freedom of expression issues and offences such as incitement to
racial hatred and libel. This has caused consternation among anti-racism groups,
which argue that the move was unnecessary and sent a message that “repression”
would end racism when in fact there should be broader work to promote equality
and end discrimination across society."

The racist roots of the French FGM crusade 4/15/2015 Spiked Online: "With
no actual evidence that 65,000 girls in the UK are at risk of FGM, campaigners
turn to France, where a relatively successful anti-FGM campaign has been waged
for several decades. Indeed, over the past 35 years, there have been 43 trials
and 100 successful convictions. Yet there is a backstory here that is rarely
told. The anti-FGM campaign in France, far from being unambiguously progressive,
is intimately linked with state anti-immigration policies. As a result, the
French anti-FGM campaign further isolates and criminalises one of the most
vulnerable sections of French society: the non-EU immigrant population,
especially black Africans."

Chelsea fans' racism: French police identify seven suspects 2/20/2015 Telegraph: "French
prosecutors have identified seven Chelsea supporters suspected of involvement in
the racial abuse of a black commuter on the Paris Métro, and have given their
photographs to the Metropolitan Police. French and British police are working
together to trace the group of Chelsea fans who repeatedly pushed a black man
trying to board a train back on to the platform while chanting: “We’re racist
and that’s the way we like it.” "

‘A Distinctly French Universalism’: Translating Laïcité after Charlie 1/26/2015 Jadaliyya: "It
was impossible to avoid the discussion, despite my repeated protests. In Lyon,
as in the rest of France, there was nothing else to talk about—especially when I
found myself seated across from a colleague who teaches at an international
lycée, the crucible of Republican education. He was visibly emotional as he
said: “I told my students now one had to choose: either you’re Muslim or you’re
French, it is simply no longer possible, one has to declare which identity is
more important.”"

Paris Announces Plan to Promote Secular Values 1/22/2015 NYT: "French
schools already have a secular code of conduct, but about 1,000 teachers and
staff members would be trained on questions of “laïcité,” France’s secular
identity, codified under a century-old law on the separation of church and
state. She promised that a day devoted to secular laws would be celebrated once
a year in every school."

Charlie Hebdo fired cartoonist for anti-Semitism in 2009 1/19/2015 World
Bulletin: "As mocking young Mr Sarkozy converted to Judaism for money, Sine was
accused of being Anti-Semitic and faced many preassures leading him to be fired
from the weekly magazine. The same magazine published cartoons even insulting
the Islam Prophet Muhammad and Muslims yet explained them as “freedom of
speech.”"

French Twitter Users Say #JeSuisCharlie Isn’t For Everyone 1/8/2015 Time: "Echoing
the #JeSuisCharlie (I am Charlie) hashtag which went viral Wednesday in a show
of solidarity for the newspaper’s victims, the hashtag #JeSuisAhmed is now
gathering momentum online. Several have used it to point out that a Muslim man
died defending a newspaper’s right to free speech, even when it had a history of
mocking his own religion."

From Dieudonné to Nicolas Anelka: Hands signal new French race row 1/3/2014 Independent: "The
gesture involves pointing downwards with one flattened hand, like an inverted
Nazi salute, while clasping a shoulder with the other hand. The president of the
French league against racism and anti-Semitism, Alain Jakubowicz, says that the
gesture signifies “the sodomisation of victims of the Holocaust”. Dieudonné has
started a legal action against Mr Jakubowicz for libel."

The Move to Muzzle Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala - The Bête Noire of the French
Establishment 1/2/2014 CounterPunch: "In the absence of any serious
socio-economic left, France has sunk into a sort of “Identity Politics”, which
both praises multiculturalism and reacts vehemently against “communitarianism”,
that is, the assertion of any unwelcome ethnic particularisms. But some ethnic
particularisms are less welcome than others. The Muslim veil was first banned in
schools, and demands to ban it in adult society grow. The naqib and burka, while
rare, have been legally banned. Disputes erupt over Halal foods in cafeterias,
prayers in the street, while cartoons regularly lampoon Islam. Whatever one may
think of this, the fight against communitarianism can be seen by some as
directed against one particular community. Meanwhile, French leaders have been
leading the cry for wars in Muslim countries from Libya to Syria, while
insisting on devotion to Israel."

The Move to Muzzle Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala - The Bête Noire of the French
Establishment 1/2/2014 CounterPunch: "Then the protests started coming in,
especially concerning the final gesture seen as likening Israel to Nazi Germany.
“Anti-Semitism!” was the cry, although the target was Israel (and the United
States as allies in the Middle East). Calls multiplied to ban his shows, to sue
him, to destroy his career. Dieudonné attempted to justify his sketch as not
targeting Jews as such, but, unlike others before him, would not apologize for
an offense he did not believe he had committed. Why no protests from Africans he
had made fun of? Or Muslims? Or Chinese? Why should a single community react
with such fury? Thus began a decade of escalation. LICRA began a long series of
lawsuits against him (“incitement to racial hatred”), at first losing, but
keeping up the pressure. Instead of backing down, Dieudonné went farther in his
criticism of “Zionism” after each attack. Meanwhile, Dieudonné was gradually
excluded from television appearances and treated as a pariah by mainstream
media. It is only the recent internet profusion of images showing young people
making the quenelle sign that has moved the establishment to conclude that a
direct attack would be more effective than trying to ignore him."

Dieudonne:
The bizarre journey of a controversial comic 12/31/2013 BBC: "Dieudonne's
dalliance with the French far-right draws the headlines because it seems so
bizarre. And it is true that his bandwagon attracts a fair share of
ultra-nationalists and theorists of the Jewish-capitalist take-over. His ally
the writer Alain Soral is a prime example. However at his stage performances
many of the audience are disaffected youngsters of black and Arab immigrant
background. According to Jean-Paul Gautier, author of The Dieudonne Galaxy,
these people "feel abandoned by society, they don't seem to find their place in
it. So basically what he is saying is - look while you're bashing your heads
against the wall, the Jews are filling their pockets. And as a message it
works.""

“Charlie Hebdo”, not racist? If you say so… 12/5/2013 Article 11: "Scarcely
had I walked out, wearied by the dictatorial behaviour and corrupt promotion
practices of the employer, than the Twin Towers fell and Caroline Fourest
arrived in your editorial team. This double catastrophe set off a process of
ideological reformatting which would drive off your former readers and attract
new ones - a cleaner readership, more interested in a light-hearted version of
the “war on terror” than the soft anarchy of [cartoonist] Gébé. Little by
little, the wholesale denunciation of “beards”, veiled women and their imaginary
accomplices became a central axis of your journalistic and satirical production.
“Investigations” began to appear which accepted the wildest rumours as fact,
like the so-called infiltration of the League of Human Rights (LDH) or European
Social Forum (FSE) by a horde of bloodthirsty Salafists[2]. The new impulse
underway required the magazine to renounce the unruly attitude which had been
its backbone up to then, and to form alliances with the most corrupt figures of
the intellectual jet-set, such as Bernard-Henri Lévy or Antoine Sfeir,
cosignatories in Charlie Hebdo of a grotesque “Manifesto of the Twelve against
the New Islamic Totalitarianism”[3]. Whoever could not see themselves in a
worldview which opposed the civilized (Europeans) to obscurantists (Muslims) saw
themselves quickly slapped with the label of “useful idiots” or
“Islamo-leftists”."

In France, Some Ask If Racism Is On The Rise 11/15/2013 NPR: "But things
took a nasty turn about a month ago: A politician from the far-right National
Front party posted a photo of Taubira next to a monkey on a Facebook page. Then
a group gathered to protest the gay marriage law was caught yelling, "Monkey, go
eat your banana!" The video circulated widely on YouTube. "The issue is not
about the small minority of people who are deeply racist in France," says
Louis-Georges Tin, head of an umbrella group of French black associations. "The
issue is about the majority. Is the majority indifferent to this situation? Or
is the majority against racism?""

Outrage in France over new slur on black minister 11/13/2013 AFP: "A weekly
newspaper with a front page comparing a black government minister to a monkey
hit newsstands in France on Wednesday, despite legal objections and a nationwide
outcry over the racist slur."

Black workers 'banned from Gare du Nord during Israeli president visit' 4/14/2013 Telegraph,
UK: "Mr Peres and a delegation of other senior Israelis arrived on a morning
train from Belgium, and were greeted by staff from SNCF, France's national
railway, and their baggage-handling subsidiary, ITIREMIA. The previous day
however, a site manager told all workers at the station about the ban on black
staff, and those of North African descent, because they might be Muslim."

Why Americans See Racism Where The French See No Problem 6/8/2012 Big
Think: "The French reaction to this reaction, as described by Sotinel, must
strike Americans as pretty funny. It amounts to this: Oh, yeah, that one guy is
black. Leave it to you race-obsessed Americans to pick that up; we hadn't
noticed. We didn't really notice that. (Negative French reviews of the film
complained that it was hokey, Sotinel writes, but none mentioned skin color.) To
Americans, this is a willful refusal to admit the obvious, something we consider
a Gallic specialty (France cannot say precisely how many Muslims live within its
borders because the government is barred by law from breaking down the
population by race or religion in its statistics.) To the French, the Stateside
reaction is American sanctimoniousness at its worst. We're the nation that
produced, oh, Beverly Hills Cop, after all. And we invented the Magic Negro. Who
are we to talk?"

Is The Intouchables Racist? 5/25/2012 Slate: "It’s a story about a white
man and a black man. The white man is rich and paralyzed from the neck down; the
black man is an ex-con from the projects. The former needs a caretaker; the
latter needs someone to turn his job application down, so he’ll be eligible for
unemployment benefits. They meet. They clash. And, against all odds, Driss, the
black man, starts working for Philippe, the white man."

'Think Like a Man’s’ Ban In France Proves It’s Hard To Be a N*gga In Paris 5/21/2012 Madame
Noire: "It was not even a full month ago that we were discussing the country’s
objection to the Miss Black France pageant which was being held in Paris.
Opposition suggested that singling out black beauty went against the country’s
nationalist identity of being Frenchmen not hyphenated factions of afro-French
or Caribbean French, and so forth. The message was that the singling out of
black beauty was somewhat hypocritical because in the same breath that black
people in the country were asking to be included more in society, they were
turning around and excluding the rest of the population from their celebration.
What was missing in that discussion was an understanding of why such pageants
are needed and how white beauty is celebrated in an exclusionary fashion on a
non-stop basis. It’s just that when something has been the status quo for so
long and those images look like the ones you see in the mirror, it’s not so easy
to pick out what’s wrong with the picture."

Martinique: “Think Like A Man”, Just Not in France 5/8/2012 Global
Voices: "Surprising as it may be, the answer lies in the fact that the film has
an all-black cast. French cinema is often pointed at for not fairly displaying
all components of the country's multiethnic population. Although the recent
success of the movie Les Intouchables, which earned French African actor Omar Sy
the Cesar award for Best Actor in 2012, caused great pride and hope among French
nationals from Africa and the Caribbean, it was not to be the turning point for
a deep and lasting change."

'Miss Black France' pageant raises eyebrows 4/28/2012 France 24: "Historian
Pascal Blanchard, a specialist in immigration at France’s National Centre for
Scientific Research, agrees with Lozès, saying he was “shocked” by an initiative
he views as “stupid” and “dangerous”. “I know that in the US, there are ethnic
beauty contests. The fact that they’re tolerated doesn’t change my mind,” he
said. “Anytime that anyone, no matter where in the world, talks to me about a
contest reserved for a specific racial category, I hit the roof!”

France's Muslims hit back at Nicolas Sarkozy's policy on halal meat 3/10/2012 Guardian: "The
phoney war over halal meat erupted in February when Marine Le Pen, leader of the
far-right Front National, claimed consumers were eating halal unknowingly.
Sarkozy, trailing the Socialist frontrunner François Hollande, accused her of
whipping up an artificial controversy. Shortly afterwards, with Le Pen snapping
at his heels in the opinion polls, Sarkozy performed a volte-face. In spite of
surveys showing that voters were less concerned about halal meat than they were
about the weather and football, he announced it was "the issue that most
preoccupies the French"."

Black Fashion Week shakes up Paris couture 3/10/2012 France 24: "However,
the event’s creator is also getting slightly annoyed at the recurring questions:
Why exclude certain people by labelling the event “black”? What would you think
if someone launched “White Fashion Week”? Adama Paris, whose real name is Adama
Ndiaye, has not been tripped up by the queries. “I would say fine, create a
White Fashion Week,” she told the French press earlier this week “But guess
what, the fashion world is already white.”

Rokhaya Diallo - Black, French and on the barricades against racism 2/19/2012 Afro-Europe: "Rokhaya
Diallo is the founder and president of Les Indivisibles, a French organisation
that uses humour and irony to fight racism and stereotypes. By raising awareness
of these issues, Les Indivisibles seeks to engage the French public as well as
government leaders in creating an alternative discourse. She created Les
Indivisibles because of offensive statements made by politicians and other
public figures during the French riots in 2005. "Only a few people responded to
them", she says in an interview with Euromight. "And this is one of the reasons
why I created Les Indivisibles."

Paris
ban on Muslim street prayers comes into effect 9/16/2011 BBC: "A ban on
saying prayers in the street, a practice by French Muslims unable to find space
in mosques, has come into effect in the capital, Paris. Interior Minister Claude
Gueant has offered believers the use of a disused fire brigade barracks instead.
The phenomenon of street prayers, which see Muslims spreading mats on footpaths,
became a political issue after far right protests."

Full-face veils outlawed as France spells out controversial niqab ban 3/3/2011 Guardian: "Face
veils will be outlawed virtually anywhere outside women's own homes, except when
they are worshipping in a religious place or travelling as a passenger in a
private car, although traffic police may stop them if they think they do not
have a clear "field of vision" while driving. Women wearing niqab will be fined
€150 (about £130) and be given a citizenship class to remind them of the
republican values of secular France and gender equality. Any third party found
to have coerced a woman into wearing the face covering, for example a husband or
family member, risks a €30,000 fine and a year in prison."

Multiculturalism has failed, says French president 2/10/2011 AFP: "Of
course we must all respect differences, but we do not want... a society where
communities coexist side by side. "If you come to France, you accept to melt
into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want
to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France," the right-wing president
said."

Guerlain’s
racist and denialist scent 10/22/2010 Afrik News: "From Port-au-Prince
where I was on Friday, October 15, the words uttered by Jean-Paul Guerlain,
aired live on French national television: "I do not know if negroes ever worked
much, but anyway ..." stunk to high heavens. France, as a matter of fact,
transported more than a million men, women and children (from Africa) to Haiti
for over one hundred and fifty years. That human trade left nearly six million
dead bodies in Africa (five deaths for one live slave, according to the most
optimistic estimates). The average life expectancy among those "negroes", who
Mr. Guerlain doubts were ever hardworking enough, was five years."

Sarkozy's immigration tough talk backfires 8/23/2010 AFP: "French President
Nicolas Sarkozy's tough talk on Gypsies and immigrants faced a fierce backlash
Monday, drawing fire from the right, the left and the Church while failing to
boost him in the polls. With two years to go before he seeks re-election and
with his popularity at an all time low, Sarkozy has this month attempted to
recapture the political initiative with a populist racially-tinged law and order
message. Police have begun rounding up and expelling Roma from Eastern Europe
and dismantling unauthorised Gypsy campgrounds, while Sarkozy has threatened to
strip some French but foreign-born criminals of their nationality. Early opinion
polls appeared to show that a majority of voters approved of the crackdown, but
an initial surge of interest does not seem to have translated into a boost to
the president's personal standing."

French admit they are racist 5/30/2010 Telegraph, UK: "One in seven French
people admit to being racist and many have prejudicial views of immigrants,
homosexuals, blacks, Arab and Jews, according to a survey released on Sunday."

French race row: unspeakable truths? 3/29/2010 France 24: "Controversial
French polemicist Eric Zemmour, who writes an editoral column for Le Figaro,
stirred up a hornet's nest last week when he said on Canal Plus television that
immigrants to France were more closely monitored by the police because most drug
traffickers are blacks and Arabs. Are these all unspeakable truths in France?"

Dumas
film with white actor Depardieu sparks race row 2/19/2010 BBC: "Patrick
Lozes, President of the Council of Black Associations of France, feels that
Dumas' African heritage has been deliberately suppressed for the big screen.
"It's very shocking and it is insulting. "It is a way of saying that we don't
have any black actor who has the talent to play Alexander Dumas, which of course
is not true."

Remembering the Assassination of Dulcie September, Chairlady of the ANC France
Bureau 3/31/2009 Cameroun Link: "On March 29, 1988 Dulcie September, a 52
years old colored female activist and community organizer, representative of the
African National Congress (ANC) in France, Switzerland and Luxemburg was
assassinated in Paris. The incident took place between 9.45 and 10am local time
when she was about to open the office of the antiapartheid group. Having
relocated to the vicinity of the Seine River in 1984, September had been an
active representative of the ANC, which was struggling to assert rights of the
black majority of South Africa. Since France provided a substantial proportion
of South Africa’s military and naval arsenal, September’s major role was to
rally support from the area and lobby for disinvestment and full economic
sanctions against the racist regime. The assassination of Dulcie September
generated much speculation and confusion over the identity and the motives of
its perpetrators. Its ccircumstances are still unclear, as the identity of the
killers was never disclosed. In the course of the hearings of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (TRC), former security police officer Eugene de Kock
designated Jean-Paul Guerrier, a French mercenary, as the ringleader of the
murder. It remains that no one has so far been officially identified and
persecuted per se. Some independent sources have argued that the coup took place
with the complicity of the French secret service. France officially closed the
prosecution and investigation on July 1992 for lack of evidence. One fact, which
can be fully debated today, however, and which may have considerably greater
influence on our understanding of the circumstances surrounding the sudden loss
of Dulcie September, is that the connection to French authorities has never been
formally/diplomatically established. "

After squalls in the Caribbean, Sarkozy faces a storm at home 2/22/2009 Observer: "The
country's worst violence since the riots of 2005 saw youths burning cars and
charging police night after night. This time the riots were not in the rundown
estates that surround many French cities but in the poverty-stricken alleys of
Pointe-à-Pitre, on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, where per capita income
is half that of mainland France and the unemployment rate three times higher.
The violence resonated with a tense and angry public in France itself. The
430,000 people of Guadeloupe are theoretically citizens of the republic like
those of Lille, Lyon or Paris and, though many of the roots of the protests lie
deep in the colonial past, the slogans and demands of the rioters were very
contemporary, focusing on pouvoir d'achat, the famous lack of buying power in
the face of high prices and stagnant wages that is the main grievance of all the
French."

Tourists flee Guadeloupe as civil war looms 2/20/2009 Private post on
carrentals.co.uk: "Protests have spread to a number of France’s other overseas
territories, including neighbouring Martinique, where protesters have also taken
to the streets with demands that are similar to those expressed in Guadeloupe.
Demonstrations have been mounted in French Guyana, in South America and La
Réunion, in the Indian Ocean, as well."

More violence on third night of protests 2/20/2009 Jamaica
Gleaner: "Rioters fired at police, stormed a city hall and burned several stores
in a third night of violence on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe,
officials said yesterday, as France proposed to boost salaries to end the
monthlong strike. More than 500 police were deployed overnight across the
island, with dozens arriving by helicopter in the southern coastal town of
Sainte-Anne, where youths had forced their way into the city hall. The building
was not vandalised, although several businesses in the area were looted and set
on fire, Mayor Richard Yacou said."

Guadeloupe strikes: Shots fired at French security forces 2/19/2009 Telegraph: "The
focus of the riots, which began on January 20, has shifted away from the
immediate demands for better wages. Demonstrators are now demanding an end to
domination of the economy by "Bekes," the local name for white families that
trace their roots to the colonial landlords and sugar plantation slave owners of
the 17th and 18th centuries. Racial strains have been aggravated by the strong
position of traditional land owning families that possess as much as 90 per cent
of its estimated wealth. Landowners also control the island's shops and food
distribution networks, which are popularly believed to overcharge for imported
goods, a situation that undercuts the value of state subsidies to the island. As
the strike started, one prominent member of a Beke family, Alain
Huyghues-Despointes fuelled public anger by criticising mixed-race marriages and
stating a personal preference to "preserve his race." "

France sends police to quell Guadeloupe riots 2/18/2009 AFP: "Union
representative Jacques Bino, aged in his 50s, was shot dead overnight when he
drove up to a roadblock manned by armed youths in Pointe-a-Pitre, the island's
main city."

French Minorities Push For Equality Post-Obama 1/14/2009 NPR: "With a
constitution enshrining the notion of egalitarianism, France has always been
considered more enlightened than America on matters of race. But Barack Obama's
victory in the U.S. presidential election has underscored France's failure to
achieve a colorblind society. Now, French minorities are pressing politicians to
promote more diversity."

The Case of Maurice Sinet The Antisemitism Incitement Craze 8/5/2008 Counterpunch: "“Jean
Sarkozy, worthy son of his father and already a UMP councillor, emerged almost
to applause after his court case for not stopping after an accident on his
scooter. The prosecutor even asked for him to be cleared. You have to remember
that the plaintiff was an Arab,” Siné wrote. But that is not what got
79-year-old Siné fired from the magazine that he has been working with for the
last 20 years. At the end of the cartoon Siné writes that Jean Sarkozy would “go
far in life.” Two days later, Claude Askolovitch, a French-Jewish radio host
denounced the article as anti-Semitic."

The French Fuhrer: Genocidal Napoleon was as barbaric as Hitler, historian
claims 7/24/2008 Daily Mail: "Non-combatants, too, were raped and
slaughtered. According to contemporary accounts, the French used dogs to rip
black prisoners to pieces before a crowd at an amphitheatre. Allegdly on
Napoleon's orders, sulphur was extracted from Haitian volcanoes and burned to
produce poisonous sulphur dioxide, which was then used to gas black Haitians in
the holds of ships - more than 100,000 of them, according to records. The use of
these primitive gas chambers was confirmed by contemporaries. Antoine Metral,
who in 1825 published his history of the French expedition to Haiti, writes of
piles of dead bodies everywhere, stacked in charnel-houses."

Africa: Inside France's secret war 10/5/2007 Independent, UK: "The policies
here in the CAR are part of a much bigger approach by France towards Africa,"
she says. "We call this system 'Franceafrique', and it was set up by Charles de
Gaulle to replace the former colonial system. There is clear continuity from the
imperial system to the present day." The motives for this war are,
Roland-Gosselin says, drenched in dollars and euros and uranium. "The
overarching goal is to take African resources and funnel them towards French
corporations," she says. "The CAR itself is a base from which the French can
access resources all over Africa. That is why it is so important. They use it to
keep the oil flowing to French companies in Chad, the resources flowing from
Congo, and so on. And of course, the country itself has valuable resources. CAR
has a lot of uranium, which the French badly need because they are so dependent
on nuclear power. At the moment they get their uranium from Niger, but the CAR
is their back-up plan." So this is, in part, a war for nuclear power? " Yes, but
also a lot of this money has been funnelled, through corruption, straight back
into the French political process. Say somebody needs a road built here in the
CAR. The French government will insist on a French company – and the French
company back home donates a lot to the 'right' French political party." This
neo-imperial war reached its psychotic apogee in 1994, when the French
government used the CAR as a base to fund and fuel the Rwandan genocide, the
most bloody since the death of Adolf Hitler. Vincent Mounie is a leading figure
in Sur Vie, a French organisation monitoring its government's actions in Africa.
He explains: "The French were totally complicit in the genocide. There were
French troops there before, during and after the genocide, backing the most
extreme Hutu forces as they murdered the Tutsis. You know the identity cards
that divided the Rwandan population into Hutus and Tutsis in preparation for the
slaughter? They were printed in Paris." The French military base in Bangui had
to be abandoned in 1996 after it was burned down by enraged locals, tired of the
French ramming tyrants down their national gullet. Today the old base is
overgrown, and the French military has shifted to new camps in Birao. But I
stare at it now. The French planes that backed the Rwandan holocaust left from
here."

Racism Unfiltered in France 5/6/2007 Time: "France rejects affirmative
action as incompatible with its republican ideals of color-blind equality for
all citizens. Nice in theory, but that's not working in practice: discrimination
continues, inequality is rife, and notions of color-blindness don't square with
the rising chorus of racially loaded commentary. Color-blindness may also
function to keep France blind to racial discrimination and inequality, but the
rising tide of anger in the projects and racist chatter in the mainstream
suggests that the French may soon have no choice but to openly confront what
color-blindness prefers not to see."

In
officially colorblind France, blacks have a dream – and now a lobby 1/12/2007 CSM: "CRAN,
in defining itself as a black organization, has run into deep-rooted hostility.
Its premise, that black citizens have shared aims and problems by virtue of the
color of their skin, may seem obvious to outsiders. But many conservatives and
academics here have complained that the group undermines the French model of
assimilation by emphasizing racial differences."

Identity: France shows its true colors 6/5/2006 NYT: "With the exception of
a few courageous souls, what still marks so many members of the French
intellectual class is their overall commitment to the ideology of Républicanisme
and its ideal of assimilation. While Paul Gilroy's "There Ain't no Black in the
Union Jack" had a palpable effect on debates about what Englishness means,
France has yet to produce an intellectual of comparable influence. Only by
coming to terms with their own cultural imperialism will French intellectuals
contribute to the challenges of better incorporating the members of minority
groups into the French polity. Only then will they live up to the powerful
tradition of the engaged intellectual."

France’s
history wars 2/1/2006 Le Monde Diplomatique: "Nora blamed this on a
recently published attack on Napoleon, another nail in the coffin of French
republicanism. In December 2005 the historian Claude Ribbe published Napoleon’s
Crime, which challenges the accepted view of Napoleon as military genius and
founder of modern France. In this book Napoleon is presented as an anti-semite
and racist, responsible for the reintroduction of slavery after its abolition by
the Revolutionary Convention in 1794. Ribbe describes him as “the first racist
dictator of all time” and accuses him of building a Napoleonic Reich that could
only prosper through the slave trade."

The Problem with Frenchness 11/9/2005 Juan Cole: "What I would rather
comment on, however, is the myths that have governed many rightwing American
comments on the tragic events. Actually, I can only think that the disturbances
must produce a huge ice cream headache for the dittoheads. French of European
heritage pitted against French of African and North African heritage? How could
they ever pick a side?"

French blacks skeptical of race neutrality 9/21/2005 NYT: "But French
insistence on the equality of man leaves them in a bind, their black critics
say, perpetuating the fiction of a society without minorities. The census in
France does not list people by race. Hence, while blacks are thought to number
about 1.5 million, of a total population of 59 million, no one really knows the
exact number, which is estimated to be far higher."

Chirac backs hijab ban 12/17/2003 Al Jazeera: "The French president has
backed a proposed new law which would ban the Islamic headscarf and other
religious insignia from the classroom. Jacques Chirac said on Wednesday that a
law is necesary to safeguard the nation's secular identity. He said: "The
Islamic veil... the kippa and a cross that is of manifestly excessive dimensions
- these have no place in the precincts of state schools. State schools will
remain secular. For that a law is necessary."

France's Le Pen: The Colonial Mind at Work 5/2/2002 Africana.com: "Against
the incendiary background of the Palestine conflict, at least a few French Jews
revel in his anti-Muslim rhetoric; one community leader, Roger Cukierman, told
Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Le Pen's strong showing would send Muslims "a
message to keep quiet."

Political
bombshell as Le Pen wins spot in French presidential final 4/22/2002 Yahoo: "The
73-year-old leader of the National Front (FN), widely condemned for his hardline
views on immigration, won over 17 percent of the vote, and will now confront his
arch-rival President Jacques Chirac in the deciding second round on May 5,
according to provisional results."

Citizens All? Citizens Some! The Making of the Citizen 4/18/2002 University
of Binghamton: by Immanuel Wallerstein - "The way to define citizenship narrowly
in practice, while retaining the principle in theory, is to create two
categories of citizens. The effort started with Abbé Siéyès, just six days after
the fall of the Bastille. In a report he read to the Constitutional Committee of
the National Assembly on July 20-21, 1789, Siéyès proposed a distinction between
passive and active rights, between passive and active citizens. Natural and
civil rights, he said, are rights "for whose maintenance and development society
is formed." These are passive rights. There also exist political rights, "those
by which society is formed." These are active rights. And from this distinction,
Siéyès drew the following conclusion: All inhabitants of a country should enjoy
in it the rights of passive citizens; all have the right to the protection of
their person, of their property, of their liberty, etc. But all do not have the
right to play an active role in the formation of public authorities; all are not
active citizens. Women (at least at the present time), children, foreigners, and
those others who contribute nothing to sustaining the public establishment
should not be allowed to influence public life actively. Everyone is entitled to
enjoy the advantages of society, but only those who contribute to the public
establishment are true stockholders (actionnaires) of the great social
enterprise. They alone are truly active citizens, true members of the
association."